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[python-committers] English 'precise' is only an adjective, not a verb.

Antoine Pitrou solipsis at pitrou.net
Tue Apr 26 00:06:34 CEST 2011 
Le lundi 25 avril 2011 à 15:44 -0400, Terry Reedy a écrit :
> > Alexander's changesets are part of that, since he didn't precise where
> 
> For the benefit of people who are not native-English speakers and who 
> wish to write literate English: The English word 'precise' is only an 
> adjective, and not a verb, so the above does not work as an English 
> sentence.
> 
> This mistake, which I have seen before, has an understandable reason. 
> 'Precise' is derived (borrowed) from the French "pre'cis" which is at 
> least a verb and noun. "Pre'cis" comes from the Latin 'praecisus' and 
> 'praecidere'. Spanish has the same verb in the form 'precisar'. So 
> native Romance speakers have a tendency to over-generalize the usage of 
> this restricted English cognate. English speakers learning other 
> languages so the same sort of thing. The closest English verbs to 
> "pre'cis" are 'abstract', 'summarize', and 'specify'.

Thanks. "Specify" would do the trick :)

Regards

Antoine.
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